More on Huckabee’s endorsement by Machinists

I think that this is fascinating. Here’s what the Machinists say:

“Mike Huckabee was the only Republican candidate with the guts to meet with our members and the only one willing to figure out where and how we might work together,” said Buffenbarger. “He is entitled to serious consideration from our members voting in the upcoming Republican primaries.”

Mike Huckbee’s campaign fills out a little what they talked about:

Huckabee spoke before over 700 members of the IAM in Orlando, Florida on Monday about jobs, globalization, health care, and other 21st century domestic issues.

What does that mean? Specifically, on trade, or "fair trade" as Huckabee calls it:

Huckabee also said he believes in fair trade. “Free trade has to be fair trade. We are losing jobs because of an unlevel, unfair trading arena that has to be fixed. Behind the statistics, there are real families, real lives, and real pain. I’m running for President because I don’t want people who have worked loyally for a company for 20 or 30 years to walk in one morning and be handed a pink slip and be told, ‘I’m sorry, but everything you spent your life working for is no longer here.’"

What does this mean? Why aren’t we losing jobs because the skill sets and technology are changing. Protectionism isn’t going to help that. New skills are.

I repeat. Mike Huckabee is running as an economist populist, the likes of which this party has not seen in a while. BTW, he is going to suck up lots of oxygen from Duncan Hunter with this. And this is going to be very, very, very powerful in South Carolina, where the main division in the last US Senate race was between free-trading Jim DeMint and (now coke-head) Ravenel. Between that and the whole Southern Baptist thing, Huckabee could really do well. Especially if his numbers keep going up in Iowa.